


hold on and don’t lose your mind

by swimgood



Series: cause i kinda like it! [2]
Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, M/M, Non-Explicit Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-15
Updated: 2017-08-15
Packaged: 2018-12-15 13:21:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,043
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11806809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/swimgood/pseuds/swimgood
Summary: The first time Minghao meets Kim Mingyu, they all could’ve afforded to have been a bit more sober.Or: how to get over yourself in 6 days.





	hold on and don’t lose your mind

**Author's Note:**

> takes place before (do anything) for that boy, but both can be read as completely standalone fics

Soonyoung’s apartment looks like it could have been put together, once, before a hoard of birthday invitees and empty beer cans attacked. Of course, it is still considerably larger than Minghao’s own, but Minghao isn’t playing house with his university sweetheart. Minghao is fine with his annoying roommate and the mouse that lives in their kitchen. He’s doing great.

He needs another shot.

Junhui throws his head back and laughs when he voices this, because Junhui is the kind of happy drunk that everyone wants to be around. Not like Minghao, who’s currently considering whether he should give Soonyoung a polite goodbye or just sneak out while he’s busy chugging an expensive-looking bottle of wine. “I’ll ask Seokmin where they keep the tequila,” Junhui says.

Minghao glances over at the man in question, who has taken the bottle from the birthday boy and is now the one pouring it down his throat.

“Good luck,” Minghao says. 

He stays seated on the living room couch’s armrest while Junhui makes his way around, getting distracted by conversations with people Minghao has never met before. Did Junhui even know them, or is he just being his annoyingly charming self? Minghao can never tell. He thinks he’s seen one of those guys around at work, chatting up Jihoon while the other signs bills, or whatever it is that dance studio owners do.

Resigning himself to the reality that he will never get that tequila shot, Minghao mournfully sips on his glass of soju. It’s times like these that he feels a little lost, alone in this country he has only called home for so long, with friends who seem like they’ve known each other for decades. Minghao wonders how his kitchen mouse is doing.

Before he can dwell in self-pity for long, however, a looming presence hovers over him.

“Uh,” the presence says. Minghao looks up.

The presence is, for all intents and purposes, an attractive stranger around his age with flushed cheeks, long limbs, and tan skin. In other circumstances, Minghao may have tucked his hands into the boy’s belt loops. Trailed his nose against his long neck. Batted his eyes and asked if he wants to come home with him. In this circumstance, however, Minghao is: cranky, tired, well off his way from sober, and not really feeling whatever small talk this guy might be looking for.

“What,” Minghao says, voice a practiced monotone.

The boy looks confused, like he had forgotten what he came here for. Minghao maintains eye contact, pointedly drinking his soju.

“Uh,” he repeats, flush growing. His eyes dip down Minghao’s throat. He clenches his left fist, then smooths it out against his jeans. A pink tongue peeks out from between his full lips, and then.

And then he pukes all over Minghao’s crotch.

\--

If you track time by the turn of a calendar, then the second day Minghao knows Kim Mingyu, it’s 3 am and they’re at the first 24 hour drycleaner that Google maps could find them. They’re almost sober, now: Mingyu due to his newly-emptied stomach, and Minghao from the night air on his bare legs, covered only by a pair of shorts Seokmin shoved at him while Soonyoung worried over their couch. They have “EAT THIS” written on the butt. Minghao tries not to think about it too much.

“I’m so, so sorry,” Mingyu repeats, sounding more desperate as the minutes pass by.

“Unpuke on my pants and then we’ll talk,” Minghao says.

To be fair, Minghao definitely got the advantage. He’s pretty sure one of Mingyu’s friends started cleaning up the couch, where most of his projectile had ended up, while he was able to drag Mingyu out before Soonyoung could take a bite out of him. That would come later, he’s sure, but now—well, now he has a pair of dirty pants in a plastic bag that’s smelling worse by the minute, and he’s not the one who’s going to pay to fix that.

“I _swear_ it was an accident—I can’t exactly throw up on command, alright?—and I’m just—Minjoon? Myunghwi?”

“Myungho,” Minghao corrects, cutting off the taller’s rambling.

Mingyu’s eyes furrow. “But the other guy, the one with the bone structure? He was calling you, like, Minghyeo or something.”

Minghao can feel his headache getting worse. As always, the root of his problems, a one Wen Junhui. “Just order a drycleaning for Myungho. Then we can never meet again and you won’t have this issue.”

As if summoned, an exhausted-looking older man comes to the cash register. Minghao mutters his greeting and hands over the bag with an apologetic wince. The man doesn’t flinch, either used to this scenario—after all, who else gets drycleaning at 3 am—or too tired to process anything.

The drycleaner is just telling them that it should be ready tomorrow when Minghao feels a hand on his shoulder. “I don’t want that, though,” Mingyu says, cutting the older man off.

“We can do prioritized cleaning at a higher price,” the employee suggests.

“It’s fine, no rush,” Minghao assures him. The man doesn’t look like he has the energy to discuss any further, taking the bag and going back to a chaise lounge behind the racks of clothes. Taking a nap, Minghao hopes. He looks like he needs it. Minghao can relate.

“I don’t want to never see you again,” Mingyu continues, like he wasn’t paying attention to anything that just happened. It’s a high possibility, Minghao thinks.

“Life is cruel like that sometimes,” Minghao replies. “Look, Mingyu—”

“How do you know my name?”

The banging in Minghao’s skull intensifies. “You introduced yourself while you wiped my lap with your jacket sleeve. Hence why we’re getting that drycleaned, too.”

Mingyu blinks. “Whoa, I totally forgot that happened. Guess I blacked out for a few minutes there.”

And there still may be the lingering stench of vomit around them, and he may have wished for any other introduction, but Minghao has always had a sad thing for clueless boys with big hearts and bigger dicks. He doesn’t exactly have direct confirmation of the latter, but he can tell. He’s always been a good judge of that kind of thing.

He sighs, already resigning himself to his fate. “Look. It’s Saturday. Come to my place and let’s fuck around a bit, yeah? Then you’ll pick up the drycleaning tomorrow, you’ll drop it off at my place, we can fuck around some more, and _then_ we’ll never see each other again.”

Mingyu doesn’t even seem surprised by his candid response, a pleased smile coming to his lips. “Will you let me blow you, or was that whole ordeal too much of a turn off?”

Minghao refuses to dignify that with a response, turning on his heels and heading out the building. He suppresses a smile when the other catches up quickly, long legs aligning next to Minghao’s own as they head toward his place.

 _dont come home tonight,_ he texts Junhui. He’s immediately met with an eggplant emoji, a peach emoji, and a tongue emoji, followed by an _enjoy mingyu’s last night before soonyoung kills him lol._ Essentially the ideal follow-up to a one night stand, anyway.

\--

Despite all indicators to the contrary, it is not a one night stand.

This could be attributed first to Soonyoung backing out on his promise to skin Mingyu alive: instead, he makes the younger personally clean his couch, recording the ordeal and sending it to everyone on his snapchat. It’s a good video, Minghao will allow. Mingyu looks good. He might be wearing one of Minghao’s oversized sweatshirts. Minghao avoids thinking about that as much as he can, which is to say that he thinks about it for the rest of the day.

The second attribution to the failed one night stand is admittedly Minghao himself, who finds that there’s more to Mingyu than a big heart and a nice dick. For example, he makes instant ramyun taste like it comes from a five star restaurant. Four star, at least. And he leaves cheese out for the mouse in Minghao’s kitchen, not to trap it, but just to make sure it’s leading a good and satisfying existence.

“Think about it,” he says wisely, sitting on the floor next to Minghao. The two of them watch the mouse nibble out in broad daylight, as opposed to its usual habit of sneaking food and hiding wherever it is that mice do their thing. “It’s just living its life, you know? It’s not hurting anyone. It probably misses its family, poor guy all here on its own.” Minghao is trying not to project onto the small rodent living in his apartment, but he might get a bit choked up at the end of the speech. Mingyu gives the rodent a piece of crust from the bread he’s eating, and then he leans in to kiss Minghao, the taste of jam thick on his tongue.

“Junhui named it Mingming,” Minghao says once they pull apart. “After his best friend from growing up. So, I don’t know, I guess it has some honorary family here after all?”

Mingyu hums in agreement. Their faces are still too close together, and this is the third day in a row that Mingyu has spent crashing at his place, wearing nothing but a pair of boxers that Minghao lent him. It’s weird, or at least it’s weird that it isn’t weird. It’s weird when Minghao’s watching Mingyu fuck himself on Minghao’s favourite dildo, because that’s not what you do with a three night stand, right? You don’t share sex toys and you don’t kiss each other awake and you don’t come up with a backstory for the mouse living in your kitchen. To quote the gif that Junhui sent him during their objective textual analysis of the facts: that’s just not realistic.

“Don’t you, like, have work? A job? A home where you live?” Minghao asks on the fourth day, while Mingyu is trying to teach Mingming how to tightrope walk.

Junhui rolls his eyes from where he’s holding a carrot on the other end as motivation. “Smooth,” he says. Mingyu just laughs.

“I’m off for the summer, baby. I’m a middle school math teacher.” he explains.

At this, Junhui perks up. “Oh, do you know Jeon Wonwoo? Big round glasses? Always looks like he’s about to fall asleep?”

Mingyu grins and nods. He seems to have given up on Mingming, who’s nibbling at the carrot in peace. “Yeah, he’s my coworker. Korean literature teacher for some of the older kids.”

Minghao’s eyebrows raise. “You teach middle school?” he asks, ignoring the ‘baby.’ They’ll address that later. “I mean, I get teaching elementary school, because then they’re cute. Or in high school at least they understand you. But middle school?”

Mingyu smiles. “I mean, middle school are the worst years for everyone, right? So it’s nice to be able to help people with them. And my kids are sweet, really.” There’s a pride in his voice as he talks about his work that Minghao finds himself connecting to, ducking his head.

“We teach middle schoolers, too,” he hears Junhui say.

“Dance though, so it’s different. I mean, they choose to be there, you know? Even the ones who aren’t so good, they’re trying their best,” Minghao continues. “Dancing is intense, as a sport and as a culture. But watching those kids on stage and knowing how that feels? Not wanting to be anywhere else, doing anything else?” He shrugs. “It’s something, I guess.”

When he looks back up, Mingyu is watching him, mouth slightly upturned. Junhui sits there quietly, holding Mingming tentatively in his hand. Minghao scoffs, wanting to break the tension that always builds when you talk about things that are important to you or whatever. “Anyway, what math do middle schoolers even learn? Multiplication tables?”

Junhui laughs in that way he always does when he finds something funnier than it actually is. Mingming startles out of his hands, scattering away to its little Mingming habitat. Mingyu brushes his fingers against Minghao’s calf, and it feels like aloe vera on a sunburn.

He likes that feeling, Minghao decides. 

\--

They’re playing Jenga, surrounded by empty pizza boxes when Junhui gets in at 4 pm on the next day.

“Did you pick up more soy milk?” he calls out. Before Minghao can answer, he walks into the living room to see the other two staring at their tower in what seems like a trance. “Hey, Mingyu. Didn’t know you’re still here,” he says, not unkindly.

“Can’t talk right now,” is Minghao’s reply. He carefully shifts a side block, freezing up when the tower wobbles.

“You’re gonna knock it over,” Mingyu says.

“Fuck you,” Minghao spouts, nudging the piece back in place. He tries for a different one and gets it out with little difficulty, releasing a sigh. He refuses to be beat in his own game. On his own soil. With his own roommate judging from the doorway.

Junhui sighs. “Have you guys even left the apartment today?”

“Minghao made me get the door when our pizza came in,” Mingyu replies. Minghao winces at his pronunciation.

“Myungho.”

Mingyu tosses the Jenga piece he just removed at Minghao, who retaliates by throwing half-eaten pizza crust. Junhui sighs, again. He looks like he’s aged ten years from the conversation. Minghao knows it’s just because he was too lazy to put on foundation this morning.

Junhui walks away, muttering under his breath in Cantonese. Minghao figures he’s saying “kids these days,” or “should I switch my nipple piercings to circular barbells?”

But now that Junhui has got him thinking to it, it is kind of strange. They haven’t left once today, and the only time they stepped out the day before was to go to that new bubble tea place that was doing bogo for their opening day. And it’s not like they’ve just been having sex, though they have been doing plenty of that: they’ve been playing Mario Kart, training Mingming, organizing Minghao’s black hole of a room—though that last one was mostly Mingyu while the room’s actual owner watched in morbid fascination. He doesn’t think his room has been that clean since the day he moved in.

He’s distracted by this, staring unseeingly into their Jenga tower, when Mingyu nudges him for his turn. He whips his eyes back towards the other’s, which look curious. And maybe kind of turned on. They’re both a little bit too into the whole competition thing.

Minghao licks his lips, satisfied in watching Mingyu’s gaze drift down with it. He pushes a block out as sensually as one could possibly manage with a Jenga block. He’s pretty sure Mingyu’s into it, anyway.

Before he can place the block on top of the tower, Mingyu leans across to press their lips together. Not expecting it, Minghao stumbles forward, and knocks the tower over with his chest.

Mingyu pulls away, a satisfied smile on his lips. “I win,” he says.

“No one likes a cheat, you piece of shit,” Minghao replies, shoving a handful of Jenga blocks into Mingyu’s face. The other just cackles, wrapping his arms around Minghao’s waist and hauling them down on the floor in a pile of pointy wooden blocks. It’s not the most uncomfortable position Minghao has ever been in, but it’s close.

He lets Mingyu hold him like that for the next ten minutes or so, until Junhui kicks them out so he can watch some drama, anyway.

\--

On the sixth day, Mingyu’s lips are a hair’s breath from his boxers when Minghao finally voices it.

“This is weird, right?” he says. “This whole thing, it’s just. You know. It’s weird.”

Mingyu pauses, mouth freezing on his happy trail. “Is this still about the whole vomit thing? Because my gag reflex is way better when I’m sober. You know that by now.”

Minghao rolls his eyes and rolls over, brushing his semi against Mingyu’s chin in the process. _Now is not the time,_ he assures it. “Not that, idiot. It’s just that we’ve known each other for like, a week now, and we’re acting like—like Soonyoung and Seokmin, or something. Like we’re boyfriends. You’ve left my place maybe four times in the past week, once just to pick up my laundry, and I don’t even know what kind of music you listen to. Isn’t that weird?”

The taller props himself up on his elbows. He furrows his eyebrows. “I mean, I guess it’s weird if you put it that way.”

Minghao knees him in the shoulder. Lightly. “How else would you even put it?”

There’s a pause as Mingyu thinks it over. Minghao rubs the spot he had nudged, until Mingyu stills his leg and presses an open-mouthed kiss on his knee. “We’ve been trying this out, right? And it’s working,” he says, looking up at Minghao for confirmation. He waits for a small nod before continuing, trailing his tongue along the scrape Minghao got during a dance practice. _Gross,_ he thinks fondly. “Let’s just try and be boyfriends, and hopefully it’ll keep working.”

Normally, Minghao would have a million reasons for why that’s a dumb idea, but.

But it sounds kind of nice, he guesses.

“Well, if you put it that way,” he repeats, running his hand through Mingyu’s hair. He gives a sharp tug, and Mingyu sucks a bruise on the cusp of his kneecap.

It does sound nice, really. Not thinking. Letting things happen or not happen, depending on however it goes. Maybe it’s time that he starts caring without checking the expiration date.

“And I do have a sex playlist on Spotify, if you’re into that,” Mingyu adds a few beats later.

Minghao rolls his eyes. He feels like he’s been doing a lot of that, lately. “I’m a dancer for a living. Of course I’m into that kind of shit.”

Everything will work itself out, he thinks, watching Mingyu roll off the bed to look for his phone. Maybe there will be a lot more laundromat encounters than strictly necessary, but sometimes you just gotta learn to accept things along with the associated mess.

And it’s a damn good playlist, if he can say so himself.

**Author's Note:**

> (mingyu's sex playlist is pretty much just mino's "body" on repeat, because same.)
> 
> title from "who" by seventeen, which i just recently discovered and changed my life? holy shit? i'm a 100% gay lesbian homosexual but that performance vid got me feeling some kind of way.
> 
> this was written as a thank you for 200+ kudos on (do anything) for that boy! i wrote that as a standalone but i am blown away by the support it's received, and i've been meaning to write gyuhao for /ages/ so here we are. back in my humble beginnings gyuhao was but an obscure background ship and now it's gotten so much bigger & i'm so proud of our fav self-proclaimed soulmates. (i've also seemed to notice an alliance among cheolsoo/gyuhao/soonseok shippers, which are my svt holy trinity, so bless this tiny but growing circle)
> 
> i'm trying to write more again, so hopefully i'll be more active! most of my wips are self-indulgent femslash aus but i'll try to publish something else soon. this is 100% non-proofread so please let me know of any alarming mistakes. thanks again to all of you! title of this series is from f(x)'s "papi," also known as the #1 hype song of all time


End file.
